american mainstream. i did not find this assurance in judge gorsuch's testimony last week, and i certainly didn't find it in his record. he received a fair hearing, but he did not earn my vote. because republicans control the senate, we can expect judge gorsuch to be reported out of the judiciary committee next week and then a vote on the senate floor. but no one should be surprised that judge gorsuch will need to meet the standard threshold of 60 senate votes in order to be confirmed. majority leader mcconnell has made clear time and again that 60 votes is the standard for matters of controversy in this senate. let me cite a few of the leader's more memorial quotes. on december 2, 200, he said, "i think we can stipulate once again for the umpteenth time that matters in a have any level of controversy about it in the senate will require 60 votes. on october 28, 2009, senator mcconnell said, well, it's fairly routine around the senate

that controversial matters require 60 votes. then again july 17, 2007, senator mcconnell said, 60 votes in the senate is common as gambling at casablanca. 60 vote s is a threshold that supreme court nominees have met for the past quarter century. if the supreme court nominee cannot garn 60 votes in the senate, then the president should put forward a new nominee. we're at unique moment in history. the president has already fired an attorney general and had his actions blocked by many courts. the president has also launched unprecedented attacks on the integrity of the federal judiciary and now the federal bureau of investigations has confirmed it is investigating russian involvement in his election. a new bombshell is revealed almost every day. in this context, the senate cannot simply rubber stamp a lifetime supreme court appointment for the president. neil gorsuch is the man donald

trump urgently wants on the supreme court. that should give many americans pause. it certainly gives pause to me. i cannot support the nomination of kneel gorsuch i'll vote no when his nomination comes before the committee next week. i will ale vote no on cloture l. the presiding officer: duly noted. mr. gardner: thank you, mr. president. mr. president, i wanted to come to the floor again today to express my strong support for a very mainstream, well qualified nominee for the united states supreme court judge neil gorsuch. last week this country got to watch the united states senate judiciary committee carry out days of hearings questioning, probing judge gorsuch's legal approach, questioning his temperament to the bench, his suitability to be on our nation's high court. i believe every member of the senate judiciary committee had at least an hour to question judge gorsuch to provide lengthy opening statements, to have an extended period of time to have a back and forth with judge gorsuch, to go over his judicial

philosophy, his approach that he would take with him from the tenth circuit court to the nation's high court. a number of interest groups who -- personal witnesses who were talking about whether they believe judge gorsuch was qualified for the court. some spoke they highly of judge gorsuch, others opposed his confirmation. that's what's great about this country, to be able to come before our congress, our government, and testify for and against somebody who will be in that third important branch of government, the judicial branch. it's incredibly inspiring to watch this process unfold. and i know there were student groups around the country who were watching the confirmation hearing as a project, as an educational experience, as a lesson in civics, democracy, and government. and i mentioned of course that judges gorsuch is a judge on the tenth circuit court today. a fourth-generation coloradan, confirmed to that position in

2006, 11 years ago, unanimously. he was confirmed to the tenth circuit court 11 years ago unanimously, based on some of the comments you've heard opposing judge gorsuch, it is hard to believe that anybody would have supported judge gorsuch unanimously 11 years ago based on things you have heard on the other side of the aisle. he was confirmed by 12 current democratic senators who did not oppose his confirmation 11 years ago, who serve in this body today. 12 democrat senators serve in this chamber today who agreed with his confirmation -- or didn't oppose his confirmation -- 11 years ago. not a single democrat opposed his nomination. his nomination was unanimous. not minority leader schumer, not senator leahy, is not senator feinstein, is not senator cantwell, carper, menendez, nelson, is not senator reed, is not senator stabenow, and not

senator wyden. his nomination also was not opposed by then-senator barack obama. it was not opposed by then-senator joe biden. and it was not opposed by then-senator hillary clinton. this level of support for the other party's nomination is almost unheard of in today's political climate. but now these very same colleagues are vowing to break 230 years of senate tradition to dispense with 230 years of precedent to joint a partisan filibuster of a nominee who has the right judicial temperament and holds mainstream views that are supported by the constitution. throughout the confirmation hearing process we heard judge gorsuch talk about the over 2,000 opinions that he was a part of, 2,700 decisions that he was a part of, and i believe he testified before the committee that he joined the majority in 97% of that's opinions. that's somebody who sounds to me like a person who could receive the unanimous support of the

senate, who did receive the unanimous support of the senate, including colleagues who serve with us today. but, unfortunately, across the aisle we still haven't heard a reasoning articulated, a compelling rationale for why this supremely qualified nominee should be opposed. sometimes they'll reference a letter from a law student at the university of colorado or perhaps they'll find one case out of the 2,700 cases that tugs at the heartstrings but not at the law and try to hang their hat on that decision as to why they should oppose judge gorsuch. if you were to use a baseball analogy, it is a little bit like a batting average. a professional baseball player who had a .400 batting average, you'd think he was a pretty good player. but that means he missed the ball a heck of a lot of the time. assumed he had hit every single time, that's the standard apparently that our colleagues

are looking for. that's a standard that no one has ever met in this country before. we're looking for mainstream judges with the right temperament, the right philosophy, and that's what judge gorsuch has proven time and time again on the 10th circuit court, that temperament that we need on the highest court. our colleagues on the other side of the aisle should abandon their threats of a filibuster and allow judge gorsuch an up-or-down vote to occur. it is what senate tradition and precedent requires. today i thought it important to talk about judge gorsuch's exceptionally strong record on religious liberty. judge gorsuch is perhaps widely known for his participation in the tenth circuit's hobby lobby decision which involved the protections afforded by the religious freedom restoration act which was ultimately reaffirmed by the supreme court. judge gorsuch made a number of telling pronouncements regarding liberty. he wrote that the law in question requires the greens,

the owners of hobby lobby, to violate their religious faith by forcing them to lend an impermissible degree of assistance to conduct their religion teaches to be gravely wrong. in hobby lobby, judge gorsuch wrote that the law requires the owners of hobby lobby to violate their religious faith by forcing them to lend an impermissible degree of assistance to conduct their religion teaches to be gravely wrong. in determining which religious beliefs are entitled to protection, gorsuch said it doesn't matter if the beliefs are contestable or even offensive. it only matters if they're sincerely held. if they're sincerely held. he went on to stress, it is not the place of courts of law to question the correctness or the consistency of tenets of religious faith only to protect the exercise of faith. it is these same constitutional principles of religious liberty that judge gorsuch has also used to protect religious minorities and prison inmates.

in yellow bear v. lampert, he ruled that a native american prison was entitled to the use of a prison sweat lodge under federal law. he went on to stress that while prisoners give up many liberties, the freedom to sincerely express their religion is not one of them his reasoning was later athe dopted by the supreme court to extend similar religious protections to a muslim prisoner. justice sotomayor even quoted judge gorsuch's opinion in her concurrence in that case. from his opinions it's clear judge gorsuch is a mainstream nominee who understands the importance of putting personal beliefs aside and applying the law as written. this is why george washington law school professor jonathan turley argued that he shouldn't be pen aolizeed for his past decisions, the jurisprudence reflect not pricingly a jurist who crafts his decisions very closely to the text after start and in my view that is not vice for a federal judge. it is for the reasons